Page 34 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘Ever since you were born, I don’t let him near me without one.’
The sisters didn’t hear that but I did. Mum made a joke. It was almost funny. How did you miss it?
‘Keep the noise down or you’ll scare that cat and it’ll piss everywhere again,’ she says, studying the room, the noise, the song she’s heard a thousand times or more. She looks at my face beaming over at Meg, who’s doing the robot.
‘You girls just carry on. Tell Meg she really is too old not to be wearing a bra though. That’s just obscene.’
8
Tables. They carry a lot of memories, don’t they? I feel I’ve known this kitchen table for an age. At Christmas, we used to put the extra leaf in for guests, which Dad had to get out of the garage, and someone always got the dubious task of wiping the cobwebs off it. There’s the mark where Meg spilt nail polish and Mum tried to remove it, taking off the lacquer. There’s the one where Beth went through her jewellery-making phase and scratched the surface with her craft knives. That time Dad put down a hot pan without a placemat. Oh, there were fights that day. I still remember the feeling of hearing my parents scream at each other. That fear and worry it sends down your spine at such a young age to see two people you love the most rage at each other. I clung to the sister next to me. Emma.It’s all right, she said.It’s just what grown-ups do sometimes. Love doesn’t mean liking someone all of the time. Now, I trace my fingers along the burn marks and bend down to look at the underside of the table. Mum never found this one. I was angry with her when I was fourteen and she told me off for piercing my upper ear. I wrote I HATE THIS CRAP HOUSE in red biro. Still there, still raging with all that anger. The lounge light goes on and I jolt on the floor.
‘Crapping hell, Lucy. You almost scared me witless. What are you doing up, love? Why are you under the table? Do you need anything? Are you in pain?’
Dad. There are so many things to love about Dad. He’s a crier, which remains endearing, but I love how he lets his guard down and makes himself vulnerable to show all these women he lives with that it’s not a personality flaw. He cries when we’re watchingThe X Factorand someone says they’re singing for their dead gran and he cries at weddings, exam results and when his youngest is run over on London bridges. Since I’ve been back – well, since we’ve all been back – he hugs us all randomly and I’ve caught him arranging the shoes by the front door and smiling when we’re all clattering over dinner and bantering back and forth like he’s missed this soundtrack. Right now, he comes over, kisses me on the forehead and pulls me to my feet, encouraging me to sit on a chair. I look at the carriage clock on the mantlepiece: 6.45 a.m.
‘I actually woke up and thought I had a shift at work. It’s Thursday, right? I usually did the breakfast shift on Thursdays. And I got up and went to the loo and then looked at myself in the mirror and realised that was twelve years ago.’
Dad comes to sit in a neighbouring chair and puts an arm around me. I’m still in one of Grace’s hoodies and some brief watermelon print jersey shorts that I found in my belongings. My legs are curled up into me. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that so I came down to stare at this table, to indulge in my daily ritual of trying to rack my brains for something, anything.
‘Have you had breakfast? A cup of tea?’
I shake my head.
‘Then let’s get the kettle on at least.’
I love how Dad can sense my confusion but wants to solve it all with tea. He gets up and bumbles through to the kitchen to retrieve some mugs. Three mugs. One for me no doubt but the other’s for Mum and he’ll bring her tea in bed like he always does. This still feels like the one way to show someone you love them dearly, the pre-emptive strike of a hot beverage brought to someone before they’re even conscious is the biggest show of emotion I can think of.
‘That gastro-café-pub place you worked in isn’t there any more, you know? They turned it into one-bed flats,’ he says.
‘Really?’
‘£450K for one bed. I had a look, too. Couldn’t swing a cat in them.’
‘You looked?’
‘Semi-retirement gives me time to be nosey. Speaking of cats… I think your one’s been licking the apples in the fruit bowl…’
‘Oh…’
Pussy and I still have yet to bond. I don’t know how I’d tell her to stop licking the fruit. Going through my belongings, I also found Pussy’s adoption certificate. I got her from a shelter. Apparently, she’d been the longest serving occupant of that place. No one wanted her.
‘I do think it’s mildly amusing to see your mother so riled though so don’t get rid of the thing whatever you do.’
The other thing about Dad is that I am not sure he knows how to deal with any of this. For years, he’s always been a silent observer in this family. It’s like he knows his limits and he’s happy to just offer his help when approached, as opposed to Mum, who bulldozes in there regardless. He’s a quiet and reflective gent who we all value for the constancy, the resilience of having lived through all the bedlam.
The front door opens and I arch my head to see Emma come in, returning from a night shift at the hospital. She senses action at the back of the house and comes in to find us. Dad gets another cup out of the cupboard.
‘You’re up?’ she asks me. ‘Are you feeling OK?’
I nod. ‘I just got up a bit confused.’
‘She got up to get ready for work,’ Dad explains. ‘Her old job at the pub.’
Emma comes and pulls a stool to sit in front of me. ‘Any dizziness or pain?’
‘Only because I’m up at six bloody forty-five,’ I say.
She smiles and takes off her hospital badge, leaving it on the kitchen table.
